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Friday, May 23, 2014

Delhi's schoolchildren shop online to complete their homework

“Leave Holiday Homework Worries. Get Holiday Homework for all classes done by Experts,” reads an ad posted on OLX, an advertising portal. Teachers may not like it, but it appears that students who despise working on their holiday assignments have found a solution — to get the homework done by contacting some of these “experts”.

While children laze around through the ongoing summer vacation, there are plenty of “holiday homework providers” willing to make projects, write articles or poems, prepare PowerPoint presentations and design working models for them at competitive prices.

“I get 20-25 orders every summer and each order includes about seven to eight projects. If it’s a working model, I take six to seven days to complete it. Otherwise, three days are enough,” said Abhishek Sharma who has been completing “good quality holidays homework” for students for the last two-and-a-half years. He charges Rs.1,000 for a simple project but the price can go up to Rs.3,000 per project if it is too complicated.

Sharma, a class XII student at a school in Gurgaon, has got clients from south India too. “I get orders from Chennai and Bangalore also. I complete their project and mail it to them,” he said.

“If the quality of work is good, the same people keep coming back to you every summer,” he added.

Many of these ‘service providers’ are happy with the response and the reach they have now got, that too without any investment. However, like in other businesses, it’s important for them to stay ahead of the rest too. “There is too much competition. I am thinking of giving up. Since many students call with their parents not knowing about it, they can’t afford the service,” said Deepika Verma, who runs a coaching institute.

“All types of holiday homework maker for all classes” — reads an ad posted by Leher Raj, a political science student. “I wanted to help students who genuinely found the work difficult. Also, the kind of work schools give for holidays is actually meant for parents to do,” she said.

While Leher blames schools for forcing students to outsource work, teachers have now started installing counterchecks. Ameeta Mulla Wattal, principal, Springdales School said, “We make students write a journal about the holidays. Any project not made by the student is not assessed at all and the students know this,” she said.